(4.5) Now this is how you write a crime novel! Take an inept detective with a drinking problem and pit him against a down-on-his-luck con in the stupidest cat-and-mouse game ever. Throw in a south Florida setting and Voila! Magic. A hilarious 200 pages that doesn’t waste a word or a moment. I’ve been sleeping on Charles Willeford for far too long. I’m gonna have to read the rest of his catalogue.

hare krishna, psicopatici, poliziotti famelici con la dentiera, ragazze sceme, rapine, botte da orbi. e miami: città in pieno sfacelo, soffocata dal caldo umido delle paludi, martoriata da una violenza che è diventata la norma, soffocata dagli immigrati cubani (miami che non è più così). libro di intrattenimento puro ma congegnato benissimo, che incolla alla pagina fino alla fine.

The first two Willeford novels I read were about genuinely despicable guys doing whatever they wanted and getting away with murder. These cats were cruel, calculating and coldhearted. SO what Willeford does here is actually make one the ANTAGONIST of the story, playing the foil to a dumpy detective and a streak of bad luck - but still a competent at his work and all around "good po-lice".
This detective story is not a mystery and everything is refreshingly upfront as we follow both criminal and crime fighter as their paths cross and criss-cross as the story's events play out. By the end I didn't want Freddy (the crook) to get away with his crimes but I was empathetic to the way he saw the world. Hoke Mosely (the detective) was pretty bland and hangdog, but his insight and experience made him someone just hard enough to take on Freddy and bring him down.
I'll be reading more of this soon enough

Další osvěžení starého titulu, opláchnutí ksichtu před natáčením Rudé žně na téma Charlese Willeforda, jedné z ikon moderního noiru a kriminálky. Tomu dokonce u nás vyšla jedna kniha, ale s obálkou, která, jak bývá v kraji zvykem, nejen úspěšně maskovala, o co jde, ale i spolehlivě odrazovala každého možného čtenáře.

Willeford v mnohém připomíná dalšího mého oblíbence, Jacka Vanceho. Oba mají mile sociopatický, pragmatický styl, který neemočně a ironicky popisují brutální činy svých postav, jejich hrdinové jdou dost lhostejně vpřed za svým cílem (ať už ti kladní, nebo záporní)… a především, jejich knihy se často točí kolem peněz. A to ne velkých peněz, ale spíš toho, jak co nejlíp ušetřit deset dolarů.

Hlavním hrdinou je policajt Hoke Moseley, týpek, co žije zadarmo v hotelu, polovina jeho výplaty jde na alimenty, má umělé zuby které mu udělal kámoš patolog a většinu románu hledá cesty, jak si nějak přilepšit. Proti němu stojí Freddy, „lehkovážný psychopat z Kalifornie“, který s penězi problémy nemá – všude kolem jsou lidi, kteří se o ně neradi podělí.

Celá kniha začíná samozřejmě smrtí… a to smrtí člena sekty Hare Krišna, kterému Freddy zlomí prostředníček – a on na následek šoku umře. Což je asi nejdivnější smrt, na kterou se dá v kriminálce narazit.

A zbytek knihy je podobný.

Celý příběh je podehraný, obyčejný, plný náhodného a suše popsaného násilí. Pátrání je čistě práce, kterou policajti zase tak moc neprožívají (a to ani vystřílenou rodinu včetně malého dítěte) a nikdo se s ničím nedělá hlavu. Ani s přátelstvím na pracovišti, kdy spolu všichni udržují zdvořilé kontakty, ale bez větších emocí. Pragmatismus je tu hlavní meta. Hrdina vysvětluje své nové parťačce, že je její nadřízený, takže bude bez námitek vykonávat všechny jeho rozkazy a pokud si bude stěžovat, tak se postará o to, aby si u policie ani neškrtla… a okamžitě poté si začne vzpomínat, kde má jaké kontakty, aby to mohl případně realizovat. Nikdo od nikoho nic moc pozitivního neočekává, aniž by to ovšem bylo nějak ufňukané či „koukejte, jaký jsem tvrďák“.

Tak to prostě chodí.

Hej hou.

This was a pretty odd--yet good--crime novel. Much of the book follows a cop and a criminal as they go about their daily lives (although their daily lives consist of checking out crime scenes and robbing people blind, so it's not as boring as it sounds).

Eventually, their lives intersect and all hell breaks loose.

It was hard to tell where Willeford was going with this story at first, but once it gets going it really sucks you in. It's also a really gritty story. Everyone is kind of mean, everything is a little dirty and broken down (including the main characters), and violence is waiting around every corner.

I re-read M.B. for the Point Blank FB group...fun though hard-edged crime-fiction novel....the 1st of Willeford's Hoke Moseley series...takes place in the crime ridden city of Miami, 1980's...in the style of Elmore Leonard, who writes the Introduction...recommended for crime-fiction-noir addicts like me! :-)

Very entertaining crime caper written with a simple, effortless style and a compelling narrative structure. Chapters alternate POV between the criminal, "Junior" Frenger and his dimwitted girlfriend, and Miami homicide detective Hoke Moseley. These eventually converge in a final showdown of sorts.

This one is all about the characters, and they are wonderfully amusing. Hoke, a sad sack of a detective is middle aged, divorced, deeply in debt and lives alone in a cheap hotel in Miami Beach. He's not particularly tough, quick witted or smart, but he's got a kind of even-keeled manner that keeps him plodding forward despite any obstacles, including any abuse dished out to his dentures.

"Junior" Frenger, on the other hand, is a blithe and hopelessly naive thief, prone to rash action and violence. He's unconcerned by the consequences of his actions, whether shaking down a pickpocket at the mall or gunning down a shop owner. His sudden eruptions of violence make for a compelling story that's more crime than comedy, but his outlandish naivete and dimwittedness make the story almost laughable. It's a hard combination to pull off, yet Willeford does an admirable job.

(English)

It is not surprising that director Quentin Tarantino turned to writer Edward Bunker to use him as an actor in his first film, nor that for his third film, Jackie Brown, he adapted Elmore Leonard, a renowned writer who in turn would express his admiration for Charles Willeford; somehow everything is connected in a spider web woven based on (un)conscious influences that it is inevitable not to fall into, and the truth is that all these people, to whom we could add John Godey or George V Higgins, would belong to that kind of new wave of crime fiction that arrived at the beginning of the 70s, marked by new approaches and modes, and perhaps with influences of a certain dirty realism practiced by people like Raymond Carver or Bukowsky. I say this because returning to the ubiquitous Tarantino, one cannot help but think of his first 3 films (although he later died as a filmmaker) while reading the pages of this book, which with a commendable, precise and almost mathematical narrative fluidity, tells a story, alternating chapters with 2 different prisms/characters, and whose lives intertwine to end up converging. On the one hand, there is the story of a hustler (Freddy) who lands in the state of Florida to try to make a living in the same way he did in the previous state he left (stealing, of course; credit cards mostly) and soon ends up getting together with a young student, a prostitute in her spare time (Susan) whom he meets in the hotel (paid for, of course, with stolen credit cards) and whose brother (another hustler, a fundraiser at the Miami airport for the "Hare Krishna" cause) Freddy had killed, albeit almost accidentally (he breaks his finger and Krishna dies of shock). On the other hand, in the even-numbered chapters, we witness the life of Sergeant Hoke Mosley, a veteran of the Miami police who soon crosses paths with Freddy, once he has begun to investigate the death of Susan's brother...

With these ingredients, and using a varied gallery of characters (criminals, policemen, shopkeepers, bartenders, Hispanic mobsters, ...) and places (police stations, alleys, cheap hotels, bars, etc.) Willeford uses them to try to build a great fresco of the city of Miami (a city, let us remember, with a high crime rate like Los Angeles). Let no one look for a poetic halo in Willeford, nor a descriptive depth in the psychological field, unlike other outstanding works that the genre has produced. On the contrary, it is generous, descriptively, in places, settings... or even close-ups (as they would say in the cinema) giving it a degree of realism such that at times one almost seems to be living among those hotels and beaches, touching the ketchup bottles in the run-down cafeteria, or soaking up the heat and humidity that one breathes in the atmosphere. A great sweep, in short, in a novel that can be seen as a reformulation for modern times of old schemes of the "crook story" and/or "police procedural" side of the crime novel. Willeford shows his good work in the dialogues, dry, direct, fresh, offering a realism that, together with the stark violence, a certain self-confidence and a fine hidden humor with which he impregnates some passages, ends up converging in a genuine cocktail of the most suggestive. Because the story itself is not the best. The grace is how it is told.

I was curious about Willeford, a writer with a growing reputation and highly valued by connoisseurs. His work, limited to just twenty novels, began in the early 50s and extended to the end of the 80s (it was in that decade that he wrote this novel and the three remaining ones that followed the Hoke Mosley cycle) when he died at just 69 years of age. A cursed writer, to whom recognition came late and after his death - like Jim Thompson and some others - in Spain he has been published very little. Just three novels and then late, in recent years. In the cinema 4 adaptations, somewhat commercially discreet, except, perhaps, Miami Blues (George Armitage, 1990), partly due to the rising star of that time, Alec Baldwin... and little else. Surely due to its limited distribution in American territory, not even the specialist Javier Coma mentions it in his famous dictionary of the mid-80s. Perhaps they were works that were a bit strange or different for the time, and/or only half of her books can be considered noirs in the strict sense of the word… I don’t know, it’s my speculation. Whether it’s true or not, what is clear is that Willeford should be urgently rescued by publishers. I know that these are difficult times for books, but it could not be more disappointing than any other book published today of which 20,000 copies are put on the street. Let’s also make room for the veterans. Miami Blues is, simply, great.

----
(Spanish)

No sorprende que el director Quentin Tarantino recurriera al escritor Edward Bunker para emplearlo como actor en su ópera prima, ni que para su tercera peli, Jackie Brown, adaptara a Elmore Leonard, reputado escritor quien a su vez manifestaría su admiración hacia Charles Willeford; de alguna forma todo está conectado en una tela de araña tejida en base a influencias, (in)conscientes en las que es inevitable no caer, y lo cierto es que toda esta gente, a la que podría sumarse John Godey o George V Higgins, pertenecerían a esa especie de nueva ola de la novela negra llegada en el inicio de los 70’s’, marcada por nuevos enfoques y modos, y puede que con influencias de cierto realismo sucio practicado por gente como Raymond Carver o Bukowsky. Digo esto porque volviendo al ubicuo Tarantino, uno no puede por menos que pensar en sus 3 primeras pelis (aunque luego ya muriera como cineasta) mientras lee las páginas de este libro, que con una fluidez narrativa encomiable, precisa y casi matemática, narra una historia, alternantes por capítulos con 2 prismas/personajes distintos, y cuyas vidas se entrelazan para acabar convergiendo. Por un lado, está la historia de un buscavidas (Freddy) quien aterriza en el estado de Florida para intentar ganarse la vida de la misma forma a como hacía en el estado anterior que abandonó (robando, claro; tarjetas de crédito en su mayoría) y al poco acaba juntándose con una joven estudiante, prostituta en horas libres (Susan) a la que conoce en el hotel (costeado, cómo no, con tarjetas de crédito sustraídas) y a cuyo hermano (otro buscavidas, recaudante de fondos en el aeropuerto de Miami para la causa de los “Hare Krishna”) Freddy había dado muerte, si bien de forma casi accidental (le rompe un dedo y el Krishna muere del shock). Por otro, en los capítulos pares, asistimos a la vida del Sargento Hoke Mosley, veterano de la policía de Miami quien pronto se cruzará por el camino de Freddy, una vez aquél ha empezado a investigar la muerte del hermano de Susan…

Con estos ingredientes, y recurriendo a una variada galería de personajes (delincuentes, policías, tenderos, barmans, mafiosos hispanos, …) y lugares (comisarías, callejuelas, hoteluchos, bares, etc) se sirve Willeford para intentar construir un gran fresco de la ciudad de Miami (ciudad, recordemos con un índice alto de criminalidad como Los Angeles). Que nadie busque un halo poético en Willeford, ni tampoco una profundidad descriptiva en el campo psicológico, a diferencia de otras destacadas obras que ha dado el género. Sí por el contrario es generoso, descriptivamente, en lugares, escenarios… o incluso plano detalle (que dirían en el cine) confiriéndole un grado de realismo tal que por momentos uno casi parece estar viviendo entre esos hoteles y playas, tocando los botes de Ketchup de la destartalada cafetería, o impregnándose del calor y humedad que se respira en el ambiente. Un gran barrido, en definitiva, en una novela que puede verse como una reformulación a los tiempos modernos de viejos esquemas de la vertiente "crook story" y/o el "police procedural" de la novela negra. Willeford demuestra su buen hacer en los diálogos, secos, directos, frescos, ofreciendo un realismo que, aunado a la violencia descarnada, cierto desparpajo y un fino humor soterrado con que impregna algunos pasajes, acaba convergiendo en un genuino cóctel de lo más sugerente. Porque la historia en sí no es la ostia. La gracia es cómo está contada.

Tenía curiosidad por Willeford, escritor con reputación creciente y muy bien valorado por parte de los "connoisseurs". Su obra, circunscrita a apenas la veintena de novelas, arranca a inicio de los 50’s y se extiende hasta el ocaso de los 80’s (es en esa década cuando redacta la presente novela y las 3 restantes que sucedieron al ciclo Hoke Mosley) momento en que le sobrevino la muerte con tan solo 69 años. Escritor maldito, al que el reconocimiento le llegó tarde y una vez fallecido - como a Jim Thompson y algún otro - en España ha sido muy poco publicado. Apenas tres novelas y y además tardíamente, en los últimos años. En el cine 4 adaptaciones, algo discretas comercialmente, si exceptuamos, quizás, la propia Miami blues (George Armitage, 1990), en parte debido a la estrella en alza de aquel entonces, Alec Baldwin… y poco más. Seguramente debido a su escasa difusión en territorio americano ni siquiera el especialista Javier Coma la cite en su famoso diccionario de mediados de los 80’s. Quizás eran obras un poco raras o diferentes para la época, y/o solo la mitad de sus libros puedan ser considerados noirs propiamente dichos…lo desconozco, son especulaciones mías. Sea cierto o no, lo que si está claro es que Willeford debería ser urgentemente rescatado por las editoriales. Ya sé que son tiempos difíciles para los libros, pero no podría decepcionar más que cualquier otro libro publicado hoy en día del que se sacan a la calle 20.000 ejemplares. Demos cabida también a los veteranos. Miami blues es, sencillamente, estupenda.

Che piacevolissima scoperta! Atmosfere ben delineate, personaggi che entrano nel cuore, Hoke su tutti, con la sua mitica dentiera, una vicenda che cattura e ti immerge in un mondo di delinquenti e disperati, pulp quanto basta, ma senza scadere nel raccapricciante. Non a caso la quarta di copertina dichiara che Tarantino ha dedicato "Pulp fiction" a questo libro: molte scene richiamano il film alla memoria. Penso proprio che leggerò altro di questo autore (e il mio amore smisurato per la Marcos y Marcos cresce sempre più ;)).

“Nessuno scrive romanzi criminali meglio Charles Willeford”
Elmore Leonard


L’irruzione nella vita di Hoke Moseley, detective della squadra omicidi di Miami, è rapida, inarrestabile e dolorosa.
Nel primo romanzo di questa quadrilogia Willeford affianca il nostro protagonista alla storia di Frederick J. Frenger Jr., brillante psicopatico californiano.
Le storie si intrecciano, i punti di vista pure, in una Miami anni ‘80 semplicemente perfetta si consuma la vita di queste sue persone, che di quotidiano non hanno nulla, il tutto raccontato con un semplicità sbalorditiva, diretta, efficace.

“Inarrestabile, le parole praticamente volano sulla pagina.”

Quanto è vera questa frase impressa sulla quarta di copertina, quest’ultima illustrata magnificamente da Emiliano Ponzi.
Fermarsi è difficile, la fine probabilmente un po’ scontata e prevedibile è inevitabile, ci si arriva senza accorgersene e l’attimo dopo si ha già in mano il libro successivo, perché la vita di Moseley deve essere raccontata. Assolutamente.

I just want to go back to Okeechobee. All I’ve had is trouble of some kind or other ever since I came down here. What I’d say, if you asked me about Miami, I’d say it’s not a good place for a single girl to be.

Susan Waggoner has reasons aplenty to complain. She’s barely in her twenties, and she’s already a runaway from her small town in the Glades, has been abused by her own brother, had an abortion followed by a budding career in prostitution. And that’s all before she gets caught in a deadly game between Miami Police Sergeant Hoke Moseley and a ruthless criminal just landed from California:

Frederick J Frenger, who prefered to be called Junior instead of Freddy, was twenty-eight years old. He looked older because his life had been a hard one; the lines at the corners of his mouth seemed too deep for a man in his late twenties. His eyes were a dark shade of blue, and his untrimmed blond eyebrows were almost white. His nose had been broken and reset poorly, but some women considered him attractive. His skin was unblemished and deeply tanned from long afternoons spent in the yard at San Quentin. At five-nine, he should have had a slighter build, but prolonged sessions with weights, pumping iron in the yard, as well as playing handball, had built up his chest, shoulders, and arms to almost grotesque proportions. He had developed his stomach muscles to the point that he could stand, arms akimbo, and roll them in waves.

I have chosen this long passage for two reasons : first, the novel spends much more time inside the insane head of Freddy than in the company of Hoke Moseley (this is not a spoiler, and no mystery actually, since we are following the events as they develop and not investigating them after the murder); and secondly, I really like the style of presentation, hard edged but with the occasional flash of black humour, eminently readable (that’s why the term page turner was invented). Willeford knows best how to fade in the background and let his characters determine the dialogue and the style of presentation.

Freddy is also the reason I didn’t add the final star to my review: he is well constructed, for a psychopat, but I disliked him intensely right from the start, with his casual atitude towards violence and total disregard for other people’s property. He feels entitled to grab everything he can, seeing himself as a wolf among sheep. He is completely self-absorbed and ready to use his new girlfriend (Susan) both as a sex toy (“platonic marriage” means something else than what I learned in school for Freddy) and as his criminal accomplice.

“You use that word a lot.”
“What word?”
“ ‘Fair’. Now that you’re twenty years old – “
“Only by one month – “
“- you’d better forget about things like ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’. Even when people talk about the weather, ‘fair’ doesn’t mean anything.”

In the opposite corner sits Hoke Moseley, an experienced criminal investigator cut from the same cloth as the classic hard-boiled gumshoes: divorced, alcoholic, cynical, heavy fisted. He’s got the blues big time, justifying the title of this first installment in the series dedicated to him.

Any way he looked at it, it was a rotten business. may refer both to the current affair and to his life in general, who is not satisfied to kick him in the teeth, but goes on to stamp on them, throw them out windows and steal them ( it’s a sort of running joke in the book with his false dentures)

The third main actor in the drama is the city of Miami, called in one of the opening scenes “the original Sin City”, where shop owners are not satisfied with safe boxes and secure windows, but keep a gunman handy in the back room, pimps and drug dealers rule the streets and the police feel naked without their guns. Hoke exclaims at one point:

It really feels funny as hell driving and walking around Miami without a weapon.

By the end, there is too thin a line between the cops and the robbers, with Freddy getting in trouble for finally trying to help a shop owner, and Hoke turning vigilante in his quest to catch up and exact revenge on him. And this amalgam of dark grey tones instead of black and white sharp contrast is probably one more reason why the novel stands above the usual fare in crime thrillers. My last quote is a bitter reminder that the people we trust to keep order and peace are much to often ready to tamper with the evidence in order to ‘help’ a colleague in trouble:

You’re in some jurisdictional trouble if you don’t get your story straight. And here’s the way you tell it, and this is the way we’ll write it up...

I am planning to read more from Charles Willeford, hoping he is as skillful in his prose and convincing in his characters as in here.

June 2024

Read 100 pages. I have been seeing several references to Willeford and wanted to see what people were raving about. I certainly can see that he is an excellent writer. The humor is sardonic and low key, and Moseley is an engaging protagonist. The misogyny appears destined to be upended. But I've just finished two long nonfiction books about endlessly bloody battles over a) Indonesian independence and b) middle eastern politics, and I just can't face following the path of a psychopath in Florida. I may come back later, or try a different Moseley book sometime.